How is the game now?

It has improved A LOT. If the improvements are to your taste is another matter. Check out the Lets play series on youtube by  Das24680. He has a few games documented. Be sure to find the one where he says that he is playing 0.913 at the start of the episodes.

They are working on faction diversity in the current beta, and while there are definite balancing concerns (as there should be), it's a lot better than nothing. Although, not all factions have gotten the love yet, so only a few actually seem to play different (Magnar's slavery & Pariden's arcane monoliths).

As for tactical battles, I don't think we're going to see anything that would resemble a tactical wargame, so if that's what you are looking for, I think you're going to be disappointed. However, there have been some improvements to add innate abilities to weapons that made them act and feel a bit different. It's made combat a bit more tactical (like tanking with sword wielders), but obviously not some crazy mind game kind of thing.

It is a really good game , but there is a lot of experimentation going on with the AI and such at the moment, and I can't really tell which way it is going to slide.

The only real problem I am having with it, is that I cannot have a long drawn out game because when I get past 200 seasons I get a crash that I cannot get past, so I have to start a new game each time.

Minus bugs, not workings spells etc the game is PERFECT!

I again felt like playing original MoM while it's completely different game.

pretty much awesome

The game has gotten a lot better. The current beta was more challenging. Felt more like playing Nethack to me than MoM. In MoM the heroes could get a lot more powerful. The champions of the early betas were more like MoM heroes in my opinion.

The game has definitely improved and changed since the January build and it is a lot more fun. 

I reviewed the concerns you outlined in your earlier post and have made up a quick comparison to the changes that have been implemented since January:

Concerns that were improved in nearly the exact fashion you suggested:

• More XP needed to reach higher levels
• Edge (and arrow key) Scrolling has been implemented
• The creatures are MUCH more aggressive and pose a significant challenge
• The heroes get injured after falling in battle, even if it was a victory (FYI: no chance of death)

Concerns that have been improved using a different approach:

Factions:

Inherent blood traits have been added as follows:

• Altarian Blood
• +10% Experience
• Amarian Blood
  • +1 Initiative per air shard
  • +1 Spell Mastery per fire shard
  • +1 Spell Resistance per water shard
  • +1 Hit Point per earth shard in combat
• Ironeer Blood
  • +1 Hit Point per Level
  • +30 to Spell Resistance but tactical spells cost 50% more
• Krax Blood
  • +10 to Defense when below 50% Hit Points
• Mancer Blood
  • +1 Accuracy per Level
• Quendar Blood
  • +25% Fire Resistance
  • Can build cheap slave units
• Tarth Blood
  • +2 to Attack and Initiative when in an army of 3 or smaller
• Trog Blood
  • +20 Weight Capacity
• Urxen Blood
  • +2 Attack when in an army of 5 or larger
• Wraith Blood
  • -1 Hit Point per Level
  • Heals 3 points when an enemy is killed

According to what I have read, this is a work in progress and they are continuing to add more diversity/differences. In addition they are adding more unique custom traits and abilities.

When building a custom sovereign, you are able to choose a single blood type and multiple traits.

Concerns that have not changed in a noticeable way:

• Tactical Combat 
• There are passive buff/debuff effects from magic, but, IIRC these were there in the January build and have merely been tweaked. I do not believe they match your request. I know this was a major gripe for you and I really do not expect you will notice much change from the build you played before.
• Goodie Hut Item Quality / Rarity

Thanks for the thorough listing. I decided to try it out, and it came off as mildly satisfying.

The factions are indeed improved, and both periden and magnar look really interesting (especially the latter, a cool and atmospheric mechanic). The rest are still lacking, though I suspect (or at least hope) they will get the same treatment. At the very least, it's going in the right direction. I would still like some unique troops for each faction, but maybe I'm just not a fan of "design your troops with researchable inventory (that's [mostly] the same for all factions)". Again, base stats for every race should be more varied, right now it's only +/- HP for two factions and one +Accuracy. We'll see.

Rampant creatures have been changed for the better too, I really had to dance around some overpowering enemies - and still got eaten by a disturbingly fast creature that came from nowhere. The main hero should get injuries too, I think.

Combat was my biggest complaint, and not enough has been done to improve it: while it is somewhat better now - there is information on %tH, retaliation mechanics, knockdowns, etc. it still is a game of whack-an-opponent. I'm not calling for Fantasy Wars or any other purely tactical wargame. Master of Magic wasn't one, wasn't overly complex but it encouraged at least some tactics (and cheese), and modern games should improve on that, not hopelessly strive to be only competetive. (and yes I know that in twenty years there hasn't been a game that could rival it, but at some point I hoped that E:WoM would and thus I'm bitter now).

Apart from the base fighting mechanics, which were maybe unintuitive at first but worked flawlessly, Master of Magic's battles had one thing that probably made them more interesting in result: they were much slower. Base infantry had one movement point and the space between both parties was, IIRC, six or seven spaces. In Elemental, most units can get to the opponent on the second turn, while any mounted already in the first one. That, and  the fact that you cannot position your troops before the battle starts, makes positioning useless and the whole battle's a mess - not to mention the poor shooters. This can be fixed in a number of ways, the simplest ones being scaling the size of the battlefield to the size of armies (so that a skirmish between a peasant and a dog won't take too much time, while a full-blown battle won't be a total clusterfuck) and/or cutting some movement points.

Then there are other improvements to battles that I've mentioned in my older post, but those are more advanced and I have no hopes of ever seeing them. Shame.

I haven't played this at all yet but I'm thinking about it. After watching some of Das's lets plays (great) and poking around the forums, this is a sensible idea, simply because a larger force is more easily scouted so you would have more time to draw up your battle lines better. 

If you're looking for unique units, try Gilden and their Iron Golems, I was a bit disappointed with their abilities so I didn't mention it before, but it's pretty unique. They are also giving Resoln some spider monsters in the coming patch... it's a work in progress, but I don't think you need to worry about that too much.

As for tactical battles, the battlefield actually do scale in size according to the number of participants. Early game with smaller armies you'll only fight in smaller battlefields, but when both sides starts to field a lots of units, it becomes bigger. Still, it's not grandscale, and cavalry (particularly if you give them the charge trait) will probably still be able to reach the otherside really fast, but it's there in a way. Positioning is also there in a rudimentary way as well, while there's certainly no interface to do it before battle, you can still influence it by the order of the units in your army, because each battlefield has slots (starting positions) to fill up with units (in order, with the leader last). So while it does takes some shuffling of your army (to move your melee units in first and range in last) you can do it to some extent... and to be honest, after playing a while, it doesn't really even matter to me anymore. Since I know the first three slot after the leader is the front line, I just put my charger cavalry into those slots, and fill the rest with mages/archers/casters.